Domus del Chirurgo

Is it worth the trip?

Yes, as part of a visit to Rimini. This is the town’s best chance to see inside a Roman building: whole floors of mosaic in place, and the story of one doctor told by what he left behind. Be clear about what it is, though: floors and low walls seen from above, not standing rooms, since the upper storey came down in the fire (it.wikipedia). It is half of a pair. The ticket also covers the Museo della Città, where the instruments are, and the house makes far more sense with them. On its own, without the rest of Roman Rimini, it is not worth a long detour.

Getting there

The Domus is on Piazza Luigi Ferrari in the historic centre of Rimini (it.wikipedia). The museums’ own page lists five car parks serving the centre (Italo Flori, Ponte di Tiberio, Largo Gramsci, Area Sartini and Parcheggio Scarpetti) and notes that the city is reached by rail from Bologna, Ancona and Ferrara and through Federico Fellini airport (museicomunalirimini.it). Public transport stops are mapped about 250 m away (OpenStreetMap). The Ponte di Tiberio is about 0.4 km away in a straight line, the Arch of Augustus and the amphitheatre about 0.7 km (candidate records).

The Domus and the Museo della Città open Tuesday to Sunday and on public holidays, 10.00–13.00 and 16.00–19.00, and are closed on Mondays that are not public holidays; in July, August and the first week of September they also open on Wednesday evenings, 21.00–23.00. Last entry is 30 minutes before closing. One ticket covers both: €7, or €5 reduced, including for over-65s and for everyone on Wednesdays that are not public holidays. Entry is free for visitors aged 30 and under, for residents of the province of Rimini and on your birthday. The ART CARD adds the Fellini Museum for €14 (€10 reduced) and is valid five days (museicomunalirimini.it, read 21 October 2026). The official tourism site adds that a guided visit of about an hour runs on Sundays, booked through the museums (riviera.rimini.it).

History

The house stood near the harbour basin at the mouth of the Marecchia, before the river was diverted to the north and the coastline moved 1.5 km out to sea (it.wikipedia). It was built around a trapezoidal plan about 30 m wide and up to 21 m deep, covering 450 m², half of it open to the sky; with the residential block in front it reached more than 1,000 m². It was remodelled in the second half of the 2nd century AD (it.wikipedia).

The doctor is thought to have been called Eutyches, from a graffito in 3rd-century script scratched into the plaster of the bedroom wall where the bed stood, probably by a grateful patient. Greek writing on the pottery, two jars labelled in Greek with the names of medicinal herbs, the foot of a statue of Hermarchus, the philosopher who succeeded Epicurus, and a bronze votive hand of Jupiter Dolichenus suggest he came from the Greek East. His instruments were mostly for wounds and broken bones, among them the “spoon of Diocles” for pulling out arrowheads, which is why he is taken to have been a military surgeon; the absence of obstetric tools suggests he treated men only (it.wikipedia).

The end was sudden. A fire destroyed the house so quickly that a wooden box of 89 coins, almost all silver, was left in the rubble and the instruments show signs of melting; the latest coins date to 257 and 258 (it.wikipedia). The remains came to light in 1989, when work in the gardens of Piazza Ferrari turned up fragments of fresco and mosaic, and the excavation lasted about ten years (it.wikipedia; riviera.rimini.it). The site opened to the public on 7 December 2007 (it.wikipedia).